specimen
noun
Simple meaning
A person instance that represents a class.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
spehsuhmuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈspɛsəmən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
An individual instance that represents a class; an example.
A sample, especially one used for diagnostic analysis.
humorousoften preceded with "fine"
An eligible man.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: An individual instance that represents a class; an example.
Used this way, specimen is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use specimen
- “They collected a urine specimen for urinalysis.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A bottle for holding urine specimens.
A specimen used for cytologic examination and diagnosis.
The original specimen from which the description of a new species is made.
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.